ray stevenson

Entertainment Weekly's Hollywood Insider is reporting that the film version of the HBO series 'Rome' is pushing forward. The series creator Bruno Heller has written the script, and Morning Light Productions is on board to produce. EW says HBO won't be involved, but thinks two of the series stars, Kevin McKidd and Ray Stevenson, will be back.

There have been rumors kicking around for a while that there would be a movie version, (Stevenson talked about the script development in an interview with MovieWeb.com last year), but these are the first concrete details to emerge.

The move to the big screen makes sense. The series was still popular with fans and critics when it was canceled. But it was expensive to produce, which made it a hard series for HBO to commit to. The budget for a couple of episodes was probably similar to the budget for a feature film.

Heller can probably tell the story he wants to tell in one long movie, with less of a financial commitment, and, who know, possibly put himself in position to make more 'Rome' sequels. Which would be great for the series' fans.

There are so many pilots made each fall that I guess CBS didn't want to go with the show about zombies that come back from the dead and have sex with the living.

But that's pretty much what Babylon Fields was about. It starrred Kathy Baker (Picket Fences), Ray Stevenson (Rome), and Amber Tamblyn (Joan of Arcadia) and was a drama set in a small town. The dead came back to life and the living had to deal with various problems that ensued (though apparantly erecticle dysfunction wasn't one of them - that must be an odd episode). Oh, and it's also a crime drama, with the sheriff solving crimes each week!

HBO announced that the second season of Rome will be the last. Apparently, Rome was originally planned as a mini-series but HBO was so blown away by the quality of the first episode that it picked up an entire season. HBO says logistics of shooting overseas and a very high price tag--first season topped out at $100 million--were reason enough to shut down the show.

Season two is currently filming at the Cinecitta Studios in Rome and it premieres January 7 on HBO.